« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
The day started with fog in San Geronimo Valley.
A couple of hours later, the landscape had turned into a BMW advertisement.
The fog burned off and revealed previously hidden features of the landscape, such as land.
Some people were so stimulated, they crawled up ladders to see the blue sky on top of their new condo. You don't see this behavior with renters.
These little critters have had a tough month, especially that two-day storm with winds over 60 mph, but today they smiled.
The rains have come and gone, come and gone, come and gone, but they're never really gone. These weather systems do something to your sense of time. One day is wet, the next day is drying, then there's another system on the horizon. So, you ask yourself, which day was this? Why, today was Rainday, which comes before Clearday, and which is two days before Drizzleday, or maybe that's before Grayday. When was Christmas? That was Clearday. Who could forget?
Into every beautiful cloudy day, a little sunshine must fall. It was almost a perfect Grayday, I was admiring the lack of shadows all day long. People I met were happy they didn't have to wear sunglasses. And then this. At least it didn't last long, it was gone before I reached that turn down the road.
The rainbows of the winter are low. I shot this around noon, but it looks like the crest of a hill. There are higher rainbows around sunrise, but people aren't up that soon. Maybe it doesn't matter, I was the only one in this business parking lot in Berkeley who seemed interested. It was also still raining, so I was the only one who was standing outside in the rain looking at a rainbow.
The next system began to blow in here a couple of days ago, there were whitecaps on the San Francisco Bay.
On the practical side, the reservoirs that support the Bay Area are rising. The huge Hetch Hetchy Reservoir near Yosemite is about 48 percent full.
This isn't the Hetch Hetchy, it's the Nicasio Reservoir. It used to be somebody's ranch, but that was a long time ago. Now it's a beautiful lake. A few weeks ago, this was nothing but a lake bed of mud, I walked it and watched the small frogs crawl out of the cracks in the mud and hop around.
The dry summer will turn this valley near San Rafael into something the color of dirty straw, but now it looks like Ireland.
The pastures of western Novato are rich green again. You'd think the water was flowing from a spring, it's so clear.
Bill and Cherie Steinkellner wrote an episode of Cheers in which Carla Tortelli and Eddie LeBec were supposed to get married, but the Cheers waitress and the former hockey goalie had a case of the last-minute relationship collapse. Sam Malone, the owner of Cheers, became their middle man. Carla asked how Eddie looked, now that the wedding was apparently off. Sam answered Carla, "Have you ever seen a puppy in the rain?"
Cold rain from Alaska is our weather right now. I rolled down the window and shot this from the driver's seat. They were about fifty yards from the dog park, so this isn't a case of the lonely lady and the depressed dog braving the icy stings of the latest storm and trudging five miles home. Still, they do look lonely. Not very bright, either. I heard her ask the dog, "How ya doin', Bismuth? You like that new cowbell I bought you?" To which the dog replied, "Please take me to a hot tub. I can't feel my tail anymore."
We also get these in the winter. I shot this in Fairfax near sunrise as the storm was arriving.
I had an odd experience this morning. Actually, it started on the 1st of January, when I took an early morning walk. I had seen something on the 1st that suggested this would be a good year to lose a lot of weight. What a hassle. For me, taking off the pounds is a lot of work. You have to eat less, I'm told, that's too complex. So I sort of ignored the little hint.
But I did think last night about that hint. Maybe there would be another hint today, if that first hint was legitimate. Maybe that first hint wasn't psychic at all, it was a Diebold Hint. You believe in it the way you believe the results from Diebold electronic voting machines.
A few minutes after I started the walk this morning, I spotted a postal weight scale. Somebody had placed it next to a dumpster. Seemed like a confirmation of the hint. If you're looking for a hint about losing weight and you come up on a mail weight scale, that could be a hint from the invisible universe. I took a flash snapshot and continued the walk, but it didn't take long to figure that a genuine hint would have been a real weight scale for people. I am not a first-class envelope.
Many hours later, I was walking home on that same street. I came up on the business which had put their weight scale by the dumpster. The scale was gone, the dumpster had been filled, so it was no doubt part of the junk pile. Guess that wasn't a very good hint at all. See, you can't really trust those omens. The scale was gone, just like electronic votes.
Two blocks later, I came upon something I've never seen in my life. Aside from that, don't give it any importance.
A man was hanging upside down from a tree. He had his feet in a sling, and his fingers were resting lightly on the sidewalk. I walked right past him, but then I glanced back and noticed him, and then I had to make sure he was okay. I asked if he was doing the equivalent of a yoga headstand, and he said yes. Good, he was coherent. I resumed walking after shooting some incriminating photos. It had not alarmed me to see him there, I had seen Bruce Wayne sleeping upside down in Tim Burton's version of Batman.
Guess I'll have to give this weight matter some attention. To see a mail weight scale on one side of the street in the morning, and then to see a weightless male on the other side of the street in the afternoon, it makes me wonder. I've walked that street only a few thousand times, you have to pay attention to things you see. Still, it's a lot of work to lose weight, you have to do nothing.
We're back into the blue again, but we went through a day this week that might be the foggiest I've seen.
The fog had been so thick on Monday night, it crossed the San Francisco Bay and sat down on the streets of Berkeley and Emeryville. For this shot the next morning, I pulled over right after one of the Skywalker Ranch campuses on Lucas Valley Road. You expect fog here in Marin County. That's one of the reasons people pay more for their homes there, the finer fog. Because of the cold weather that accompanied the front, the stuff wouldn't leave. The fog didn't burn off in some parts till after noon.
The fog was so thick Tuesday, Caltrans even used one of their marquee signs on 101 to warn drivers about fog on the Richmond Bridge. This was unusual. We get fog all the time here, so you know it's a special circumstance when Caltrans puts a fog warning up.
Oh, and check out the license plate on the small silver car in the foreground, part of it reads FOG.
And here is fog on the Richmond Bridge. Looks great, too bad they don't let you pull over. The shots I could have taken. It was thicker earlier, but I shot this around noon.
Wednesday was clear again, and this is a sculpture by Mark Grieve titled "Flat Heaven." It's creative, old tires and bike wheels. You can see it in San Rafael on 4th Street, not far from the courthouse.
Another view of the arch, facing the south.
One of the oddest photos I've taken, but not for the obvious reason. I was driving up C street and saw a fellow riding a Segway. This is only the second time I've seen a Segway. The odd part is that it's passing the Marin Mac Shop. One of the biggest boosters of the Segway is Apple co-founder Steve Wosniak. Click here and you'll see a photo of Woz at last year's Macworld. He also plays Segway polo.
The Segway rider here passed the fire engine house, and there I saw PARKING ENFORCEMENT on the back of his jacket. As it turns out, the city of San Rafael has been experimenting with Segways. They're more flexible and safer than cars or bikes in some cases, such as stopping to write a ticket. A car would have to double-park, but the Segway rider can just stop and get off to deliver the ticket.
Because we had a day of blue sky in the Bay Area, we have to have another wet day. As a driver, it's one of those atmospheric rules I don't admire, but as an artist, drizzle is a beautiful thing. It softens the light, adds shine to reflective surfaces, and makes vegetation fresher. As always, click on the small photos to see larger ones.
Here's a bit of Marin standing water, just off the road to Point Reyes. A month ago, you couldn't fill a canteen there, but now it keeps growing. Good, water levels have been low, the Nicasio Reservoir was the lowest I've seen in 15 years. Pretty soon, this puddle will be the swimming hole for local cows. They'll lounge around in the soft, misty sun. They'll steal glances at the bathing suits the others have on, and then they'll hit the water. They won't exactly swim, but they're pretty good at the cattle paddle.
The grocery is about to open in 20 minutes, and the grocery carts wait with anticipation.
I'm a photographer, but sometimes I like to work with oil. That's me in the shining rainbow water, holding the Powershot camera, straddling the slick that came from somebody's car in the Safeway parking lot. I think it was a Bentley.
Another view of the slick.
And now for a bit of bright color. This was a Mercedes S500 with a custom paint job, and it looked like neon compared to gray and silver cars on the other side of I-80.
Does it look to you as if these airliners are too close? I know the FAA has these separation rules, so many feet of vertical separation, so many miles of separation at cruising altitude and all that. One airliner is heading for Oakland, it appears, and another has probably launched from San Francisco. Looks like a 737 on the left and a 757 on the right, not too different in size. They do appear close in altitude, even allowing for the distortion caused by a ground view. Put differently, wouldn't the collision avoidance radar system in the lower plane activate? I'd call that close.
Here's what happened. Even though they appeared too close for the aircraft separation rules I grew up with, the pilots waved to each other and then they split.
Does it look to you as if that kite is too close to the sun?
Half an hour later, the kite was back in the parking lot.
The sun came out and we all danced in a big circle. The sandbags were still lined up against doors, and broken tree limbs littered the streets, but most everybody in the Bay Area had power back. At one time, as many as a million customers were blacked out, that's what the reports said. The Berkeley photolab I use had to shut down on Friday during the storm. They were getting power fluctuations, not good for film developer machines and computers. When in doubt, protect the film and the files. I stopped by Dominican University this morning in San Rafael, and they got their power back last night. The wind had knocked over a tree, they told me, which took down a power line, which sent the dining hall and other facilities into darkness. At any rate, we're between storms for now, so the sun came out and people light on their feet enjoyed it.
The colors on the color wheel wind vane returned in San Rafael.
A drinking fountain along the back roads of Marin didn't enjoy total solar coverage, more like lots of tiny suns. Looks modern, or maybe art deco, but the shadows were actually cast by the holes in a decorative piece of wood next to a picnic table.
The hillsides of Nicasio Valley were green again.
The eastbound San Rafael-Richmond Bridge was wide open. This bridge was shut down on Friday after a Safeway truck flipped over in the fierce winds. A bit later, the top deck of the bridge was closed in the westbound direction. This bridge didn't open till the afternoon, ouch. Today, traffic was light.
I came upon this puddle and leaves in Berkeley or North Oakland. There was a chain link gate locked to a couple of posts. Guess it's there to protect the puddle. Makes sense, puddles need protection, too.
We had a big one over the last few days. A big front from the Arctic flew in here on Thursday. The winds and the rains on Friday were in the top ten of storms going back over 50 years. Most places got two inches of rain, some got almost eight inches of rain. The winds on bridges and hills were over 70 mph, and were over 100 mph here and there. At the crest of Lucas Valley Road through Marin County, the winds at Big Rock were over 80 mph. Although the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge stayed open, the San Rafael Bridge was shut down most of the day. I had the day off and stayed at home all day.
Conditions were closer to normal today during my walk, but there was still evidence of damage and wetness.
A tree toppled in Berkeley, knocked over by the high winds near the Bay. As it fell, its trunk and roots lifted and cracked the pavement in a parking lot.
The drainage system along this curb was filled with autumn leaves and Christmas decorations.
On Christmas day, I had watched a family play bocce at this court. It's going to be unavailable for play the next few days.
Somebody had left cans of paint outside, so the rain added to the color display.
The sidewalks were drying out, so the mixture of wet spots and dry created beautiful abstract images.
This photo was taken on the pavement of an abandoned school. There were hopscotch squares near these number squares. Not sure what function these served in a schoolyard. Anyway, they looked better wet.
The sun came out for a few hours. These Indian Paintbrush flowers survived the storm quite well.
This hummingbird survived the storm. Where do hummingbirds take shelter during storms?
The planes were still taking the alternate approaches to Bay Area airports, though. The winds are still coming from the unusual direction, so we're seeing lots of jumbo jets at low altitudes as the fly toward San Francisco International Airport and Oakland International.
This blue tarp was pinned across the side door of a small business. It worked well this time, the Waste Management trash can behind the tarp was not destroyed. Might as well keep this blue barrier up, we're going to get wet all this week.
Today in 1933, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began. One of the most photographed subjects on earth, it is still an inspiration to painters and photographers. Everybody who visits the Bay Area should take the pedestrian path to the middle of the bridge. There's not a better view in the area. You're standing more than 200 feet above the Pacific Ocean and facing east, and it's easy to believe the entire American continent begins right there.
I don't have many color photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, on account of my allergy to color film. This photo is a modern one, thought I'd begin with it because it corresponds to the construction anniversary. This crane rises from the Fort Point area, I believe it was being used for a seismic retrofit project in 2005.
Here's a shot from Baker Beach, to the southwest of the bridge. The nearby birds are above the south tower.
This photo was taken from a pier at Fort Baker. There's a bit of confusion with the names, but Baker Beach and Fort Baker are miles apart. The north tower is on the right. Most of the bridge in located in San Francisco, but the north tower is located in Marin County.
Wikipedia has a good entry for the Golden Gate Bridge, and their photographs are in color.
Click here.
For many years, the first day of January has been a question mark. What were my first photographs of the year going to be? I would look for something significant, since I was shooting film and every photograph was costing money. Also, perhaps, the first photos were a kind of omen for the year. Good photos would suggest a good year of photography. That was the game, at least. This year is the first I've begun with a digital camera, and my approach was different today. I was looking for the earliest light that would allow me to get an attractive shot.
This is a seagull gliding beneath a sunrise contrail in Berkeley. Seagulls and blackbirds can't resist the delicious aromas coming from the Safeway dumpsters near the trees. They could fly down the block and sniff around the Andronico's market, but the seagulls are sweet on Safeway.
We had a beautiful sunrise on the Bay, lots of subtle colors. You're looking at Mount Tamalpais in the distant middle across the bay. The top of Mount Tam just rises over the mist there. I shot this from the area around Golden Gate Fields, a horse racetrack next to Interstate 80. They were supposed to run the New Year's Cup races this morning at Golden Gate Fields, but all the horses had hangovers.
